2012 Slayer

Looking to pull the trigger on a 2012 RM Slayer. Jenson's deals are too good to pass up.

I thought I would check in here for some peer pressure AND other info about the Slayers. I ride techincal trails for the most part. Some rock rolls and lots of rooty chunder. No jumps, though. I am really attracted to the Straight Up geo concept...every long travel bike I have owned (lots) suffers from too slack a seat angle...I always end up running the saddle nearly full forward on its rails to get the right positioning.

So...tell me what you know. I think the good has been well-documented. I want to know the "bad". I've seen some discussion about the pivots and bushings. I've also seen some ramblings about the "short" ETT. Some say the BB is high...14 inches might be a tad high.

I have the Slayer 70 for 2 months. For the negatives, I would really have to nit pick.
On really steep climbs, I do notice the front wheel wants to flop a little but sitting forward more takes care of that.
The Formula One brakes are sometimes noisey as documented in these forums however, they are truly one finger brakes. Very strong.
BTW, Backcountry currently has the best price on the Slayer which is under the same ownership as Jenson or ask for a price match.
Nothing can touch this bike at that price.

Cool. that's what I like to hear...the fact that you have to nitpick to find a "negative" about the bike.

I have read that about the brakes. I am thinking of getting the lower level model and then upgrading the spec with parts I hvae around (Fox 36, Avid CRs, Sram XO, etc.)

I will probably also run a longish stem...90mm likely. I generally like to be spread out a bit more in the cockpit, and the longer stem makes it easier for me to get behind the front end on wide open descents.

I got the 70 as well from Jenson when they were doing it for $3300, crazy price! I ride everything from longer epics to whistler like freeride terrain, and so far this bike has held up extremely well in all uses. Downsides are very minor, but are:

- Brakes are a bit of a pain to dial in, but once I switched to organic pads to stop the squealing, they were awesome. Extremely powerful, and I love how touchy they are (ie, barely any lever play before they engage). Seems a lot of people had issues though, I see Rocky spec'd a different brand of brakes this year.

- Rear shock. I love that the suspension on this bike feels almost as plush as a larger downhill bike. However, as rider who weighs closer to 190 lbs geared up, I find I really have to pay attention to my air pressure in the shock to keep it as plush as I like without bottoming out on the medium to larger hits. I plan on getting it tuned at Fox this spring though, so hopefully that helps.

- Like the above poster, I really wish Rocky had kept the TALAS up front from 2011, on steeper climbs that 160mm Float (which is awesome otherwise) tends to wander around.

- I have an intermittent issues with chain suck, but I think that's more due to the drive train components than the bike itself. Happening less and less as everything wears in and gets bedded.

- No chain slap protection, but easy enough to make your own.

These are all really minor points, overall I really enjoy this bike and would highly recommend it to anyone. In my opinion, the 2012 is a MUCH better build than the 2013's, which seem a step backwards to me component wise. Considering how cheap some of the online stores have it right now, it's a real steal.

Oh and I did have one warrenty issue with the rear shock leaking upon arrival, but Jenson really stepped up and sorted it for me asap with no hassle at all. Definitely put my mind to ease in tems of buying a bike online.

I got the Slayer 50 from the Jenson sale in August. I love the bike, in my case the rider is the weak link

Check your disc brake mounting bolts (frame -> caliper)! On probabaly the 7th ride or so I reached for the rear brake at the beginning of a descent and the wheel completely locked up. Turns out one of the mounting bolts came off somewhere during my ride and the rear brake caliper got torqued down onto the rotor. After replacing the mounting bolt at home, I realized my rotor was now completely whacked - ended up replacing the rotor with the original model from Formula, which isn't cheap!

Not sure if that part of the build was from RM or Jenson...but it obviously was originally installed too loose. Lesson learned....go through all bolts to make sure they aren't too loose (I don't have a torque wrench so it's hard to do with any sort of accuracy).

Early on I had some slight play in the front wheel/hub. I learned I have to apply a strong sqeeze of the forks together when mounting the wheel. Also, a handful of rides was required to bed-in the front hub to remove the play.

Super excited though everytime I get on this bike! I'm 6' and the 19" feels great.

Just cancelled my DB mason HT preorder and spent an extra 1.1k on an 18' slayer 70 (I'm 5'9 almost 5'10). Honestly, I don't know why I waited this long or even considered buying a different bike. Actually, yes I do, I'm 19 and the 3.3k I'm spending has taken forever to amass at $8/hour.

Just cancelled my DB mason HT preorder and spent an extra 1.1k on an 18' slayer 70 (I'm 5'9 almost 5'10). Honestly, I don't know why I waited this long or even considered buying a different bike. Actually, yes I do, I'm 19 and the 3.3k I'm spending has taken forever to amass at $8/hour.

I'm considering cancelling my Mason HT to. I've been waiting since August, first it was September, then November now it's middle of January.

Hi all.
Month ago i bought a Slayer 70 (2012)
I am very pleased with the purchase but there are some creaks from the right side of the crank (Race Face).
I visited the store from which the bike was purchased but they could not identify creaks cause.
Creaks appears when i am using small front sprocket and one of three large on rear cassete.
No friction from front derailleur and chain.
Crank is lubricated.
Tried to use couple pairs of pedals so it's not the reason for sure.
I can't find the creaks cause and it is very irritating me.
Maybe someone has already faced with a similar problem ?

I would say the main pivot bolt torque should be checked, it may be coming loose, or it may need grease on the main pivot bolt. Using the chain on a different front chainring changes the direction of forces on that pivot (closer to pivot centre on granny ring) so that might be why it's more prone to creaking in those low gears.

I also have a slayer 70 that I got from Jenson and I initially had issues with creaking too. Just like you, I traced it to my chainring bolts. I ended up switching to 1x10 with a renthal ring and some nice sugino steel bolts, but when I still had my 2x10 RF chainrings I found that taking every bolt out, cleaning them, applying loctite blue, and torquing to correct specs according to RF with a torque wrench solved the problem. Clearly whoever put the cranks together initially didn't really care.

I picked up a 2011 slayer 50 one year ago while on a ski trip in jasper. Got it for 3000 on clearance. Last 2011 they had and turned out to be perfect size!
Installed reverb dropper post, new XTR brakes and ice tech rotors, and switched out the race face crankset for a deore XT double since then. Rode the heck out of it for a month while vacationing on the west coast, 5 days in whistler, Squamish, north vancouver, did it all just fine, far more capable and plush on the downhill than my previous Rocky Mountain element. Now I need to go to a skills camp so I can really push this bike to its full potential.

I just ordered one of the few remaining 2012 Slayers from Jenson the other day. It's a lot of suspension for what the local trails can offer, but I've been wanting a good compliment to my Rockhopper 29er for a while. At nearly half off, how could I say no?